1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical connectors and, particularly, to an electrical connector made by integrally molding a housing and terminals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese SUM patent application Kokai No. 3-126389 discloses a pair of electrical connectors locked to each other. As FIG. 3 shows, a first connector 50 has a housing 51 to which a terminal 52 is attached. The terminal 52 has a contact section 53 with a trapezoidal recess 54. A second connector 60 has a housing 61 to which a resilient terminal 62 is attached. The resilient terminal 62 has a semi-circular projection 63 at a tip thereof and a small semi-circular contact portion 64 at the middle position thereof.
In use, the second connector 60 is plugged into the first connector 50 in a direction A such that the projection 63 of the terminal 62 is snapped in the recess 54 of the terminal 52, locking contact between the contact portion 64 and the contact section 53. In the above connectors, the terminal 52 is fitted into the housing 51 upon assembling.
It is well known that a terminal can be integrally molded with the housing of an electrical connector. If the electrical connector of FIG. 3 is made by such integral molding, the recess 54 of the terminal 52 is filled with the molding resin, causing poor contact. In addition, the resin can adhere to the contact section 53 with which the contact portion 64 of the mating connector 60 is brought into contact.
Since the position for making electrical contact is different from the position for locking the electrical contact, the terminal becomes long, resulting in the large connector. To avoid such a problem, it is desired that the lock section works also as contact section. However, this is difficult to do because of the above problem that the resin can adhere to the lock section.